Federer takes medical timeout in straight-sets win
NEW YORK — The only bit of trouble for Roger Federer in his fourth-round match at the U.S. Open was when he felt the tightening of a muscle at the back of the top of his left leg.
Federer asked for a medical timeout after the second set against No. 33 seed Philipp Kohlschreiber, briefly let the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium to get a quick massage from a trainer, and soon was right back at it, finishing off his 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 victory Monday night.
“It was more precaution. It’s all good. No problems there,” said Federer, who did not face a break point. “I’m not worried about it.”
The state of the 36-year-old’s physical condition has been a talking point throughout the tournament, because Federer tweaked his back during a match in August, interrupting his preparation for Flushing Meadows. Federer said he was worried about his movement in his first-round match against 19-year-old American Frances Tiafoe, then had timing issues in his second-rounder against 35-year-old Russian Mikhail Youzhny — and both of those contests went five sets.
On the bright side, the 19-time major champion also spent some time drawing a crowd by hitting in Central Park and has put together two straight-set wins in a row against opponents in their 30s.
“I went from Tiafoe, then to the oldies, so that was good,” Federer joked. “Yeah, back to the ’80s.”
In the quarterfinals, he’ll face someone who turns 29 this month and whose presence does not conjure good memories for Federer at the U.S. Open: Juan Martin del Potro.
Federer is a combined 44-0 against the first four men he’s played, and he is 16-5 against del Potro. But del Potro won their meeting in the 2009 final in New York in five sets for his only Grand Slam title, ending Federer’s streak of five straight U.S. Open championships — and he hasn’t won the trophy since.
“I felt like that I left that match with a lot of regrets,” Federer said. “Probably feels like one of those matches I would like to play over again. Feel like I would probably win it somehow.
“I just had all these chances in multiple moments. The only time when he was really better, in my opinion, was the fifth set,” he added. “Obviously that was good enough to beat me that day.”
Del Potro has gone through plenty of health problems since then, including three operations on his left wrist that forced him to miss two years’ worth of Grand Slam tournaments until Wimbledon in 2016.
Del Potro shook off the effects of a fever and erased two set points while coming back from a big deficit to eliminated No. 6 Dominic Thiem 1-6, 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4.
The other matchup on that half of the men’s bracket will be No. 1 Rafael Nadal against 19-year-old Andrey Rublev, the youngest quarterfinalist at the U.S. Open since Andy Roddick was 19 in 2001.
Nadal got to the round of eight in New York for the first time since his 2013 title, overwhelming 64th-ranked Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-2, 6-4, 6-1.
Nadal gets to play a fifth consecutive unseeded foe in Rublev, who took out No. 9 David Goffin 7-5, 7-6 (5), 6-3.
The top-seeded woman had even less trouble than Nadal did Monday: 2016 runner-up Karolina Pliskova beat 91st-ranked American Jennifer Brady 6-1, 6-0. In the quarterfinals, Pliskova will take on No. 20 CoCo Vandeweghe, who beat Lucie Safarova 6-4, 7-6 (2) to become the third U.S. woman in the next round.
Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens advanced on Sunday.
Also Sunday, 18-year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov’s entertaining stay ended with a 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) loss to 12th-seeded Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.
Shapovalov was trying to become the youngest male quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows since Andre Agassi in 1988, but he wasted a 5-2 lead and three set points in the opener, and finished with 55 unforced errors.
“Honestly, it was so much fun to be part of that atmosphere and the match and this whole two weeks,” Shapovalov said. “You know, it’s another life-changing event for me.”
The defeat — where he pushed the 12th seeded Carreno Busta to three tiebreaks — was the deepest the 18-year old from Richmond Hill, Ont., had ever gone in a senior Grand Slam tournament. It came four weeks after he upset some of the biggest names in tennis at the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
“I didn’t expect to be this far along at this point in the season. My goal was to be ranked 150th (on the ATP Tour), by the end of the season,” said Shapovalov, who rose from No. 143 to 67th on Aug. 14 after the Rogers Cup and will rise even higher after his performance at the U.S. Open.